Some historians see the Crusades as part of a purely defensive war against Islamic conquest; some see them as part of long-running conflict at the frontiers of Europe; and others see them as confident, aggressive, papal-led expansion attempts by Western Christendom. Crusading attracted men and women of all classes. The massacres involved were mainly attributed as being caused by disorder, an epidemic of ergotism and economic distress.[2] The Byzantine Empire was unable to recover territory lost during the initial Muslim conquests under the expansionist Rashidun and Umayyadcaliphs in the Arab–Byzantine Wars and the Byzantine–Seljuq Wars; these conquests culminated in the loss of fertile farmlands[3] and vast grazing areas of Anatolia[4] in 1071, after a sound victory by the occupying armies of Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert. Urban II sought to reunite the Christian church under his leadership by providing Emperor Alexios I with military support.

Several hundred thousand Roman Catholic Christians became crusaders by taking a public vow and receiving [7] Certain monarchs across Europe also pledged their servants for service for the perks of being "a part of the war". Whether obligated, or willing, the time that one put forth to glorify the kingdom of God through his time during the war was greater than any treasure one could gain while upon the earth.

The impact of the crusades was profound, and judgment of the conduct of crusaders has varied widely from laudatory to highly critical. Latin Church under the Pope’s leadership and was the source of heroism, chivalry, and medieval piety. This in turn spawned medieval romance, philosophy, and literature.[8] However, the crusades reinforced the connection between Western Christendom, feudalism, and militarism that ran counter to the Peace and Truce of God that Urban had promoted.

The crusaders often pillaged the countries through which they travelled in the typical medieval manner of supplying an army on the move. Nobles often retained much of the territory gained rather than returning it to the Byzantines as they had sworn to do.[9][10] The Peoples' Crusade prompted Rhineland massacres and the murder of thousands of Jews. In the late 19th century this episode was used by Jewish historians to support Zionism.[11] The Fourth Crusade resulted in the sack of Constantinople by the Roman Catholics, effectively ending the chance of reuniting the Christian church by reconciling the East–West Schism and leading to the weakening and eventual fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans. Nevertheless, some crusaders were merely poor people trying to escape the hardships of medieval life in an armed pilgrimage leading to Apotheosis at Jerusalem.[12]

Terminology

Crusade

"Crusade" is a modern term, from the French croisade and Spanish cruzada. The French form of the word first appears in the L'Histoire des Croisades written by A. de Clermont and published in 1638. By 1750, the various forms of the word "crusade" had established themselves in English, French, and German.[13] The Oxford English Dictionary records its first use in English as occurring in 1757 by William Shenstone.[14]

The Crusades were never referred to as such by their participants. The original crusaders were known by various terms, including fideles Sancti Petri (the faithful of Saint Peter) or milites Christi (knights of Christ).

Like pilgrims, each crusader swore a vow (a votus) to be fulfilled on successfully reaching Jerusalem, and they were granted a cloth cross (crux) to be sewn into their clothes. This "taking of the cross", the crux, eventually became associated with the entire journey.[15] They saw themselves as undertaking an iter, a journey, or a peregrinatio, an armed pilgrimage. The inspiration for this "messianism of the poor" was the expected mass apotheosis at Jerusalem.[12]

Numbering

Historians consider that between 1096 and 1291 there were seven major Crusades and numerous minor ones.[9] However, some consider the Fifth Crusade of Frederick II as two distinct crusades. This would make the crusade launched by Louis IX in 1270 the Eighth Crusade. In addition, sometimes even this crusade is considered as two, leading to a Ninth Crusade.

Political Crusades

Popes frequently called crusades for political reasons and crusades were also declared as a means of conflict resolution amongst fellow Roman Catholic Christians. Pope Innocent III declared a crusade against his political opponent Markward of Anweiler in Sicily. Only a few people took part, and the need for the crusade ended in 1202 when Markward died. This is generally considered the first "political crusade".[18] Between 1232 and 1234 there was a crusade against the Stedingers, peasants who refused to pay tithes to the Archbishop of Bremen. The archbishop excommunicated them, and Pope Gregory IX declared a crusade in 1232. The peasants lost the Battle of Altenesch on 27 May 1234 and were destroyed.[19]

Emperor Frederick II was the object of several political crusades called by a number of popes. In 1240 Pope Gregory IX deposed and preached a crusade against Frederick for his opposition in Italy.[20] In 1248 Pope Innocent IV's[21] crusade against him was transferred in 1250 to his son, Conrad IV when he died, but to little effect. Crusades were called against Frederick's illegitimate son Manfred, King of Sicily, from 1255 through 1266,[22] and Conrad's son, Conradin, in 1268 with the urging of Charles of Anjou.[23]

Two crusades appear to have been called against opponents of King Henry III of England – one from 1215 to 1217 and the other from 1263 to 1265 with the first enjoying the same privileges as those given to crusaders on the Fifth Crusade. The second got as far as having papal legates being dispatched to England with the power to declare a crusade against Simon de Montfort, but Montfort's death in 1265 ended this.[24] The Norwich Crusade of 1383, also called the Despenser's crusade, which was a military expedition that aimed to assist the city of Ghent in its struggle against the supporters of Antipope Clement VII, was really an extension of the Hundred Years War rather than a purely religious enterprise.[25]

A key difference between the Crusades and other holy wars was that the authorization to carry out these wars came directly from the pope, who claimed to be working on behalf of Christ.[26]

Saracen

Before the 16th century the words "Muslim" and "Islam" were very rarely used by Europeans.[27] During the crusades the term widely used for Muslim was Saracen. In Greek and Latin this term had a longer evolution from the beginning of the first millennium, where it referred to a people who lived in desert areas around the Roman province of Arabia who were distinguished from Arabs.[28][29] The term developed to include Arab tribes and by the 12th century had become an ethnic and religious marker synonymous with "Muslim" in Medieval Latin literature.[30][31][32][33] In the romance The King of Tars, Saracens are black-skinned while Christians are lighter-skinned.[34][35] The Old French 11th century heroic poem The Song of Roland takes the association of black skin with Saracens a step further by making it their only exotic feature.[36]

Frank

The term Frank has been used by many of the Eastern Orthodox and Muslim neighbours of medieval Latin Christendom (and beyond, such as in Asia) as a general synonym for a European from Western and Central Europe, areas that followed the Latin rites of Christianity under the authority of the Pope in Rome. Another term with similar use was "Latins".

When the city of Acre fell in 1291 and its Latin Christian population was killed or enslaved, the Franks lost their last major stronghold.

Modern historians often refer to Christians following the Latin rites in the eastern Mediterranean as "Franks" or "Latins", regardless of their country of origin, whereas they use the words Rhomaios and Rûmi ('Roman') for Orthodox Christians. Latin Christians living in the Middle East (particularly in the Levant) are still known as Franco-Levantines.

During the Mongol Empire in the 13-14th centuries, the Mongols used the term 'Franks' to designate Europeans.[37] The term Frangistan ("Land of the Franks") was used by Muslims to refer to Roman Catholic Christian Europe and was commonly used over several centuries in Iran and the Ottoman Empire.

During the Reformation and Counter-Reformation of the 16th century, historians saw the Crusades through the prism of their own religious beliefs. Protestants saw them as a manifestation of the evils of the Papacy, while Catholics viewed the movement as a force for good.[39] During the Enlightenment, historians tended to view both the Crusades and the entire Middle Ages as the efforts of barbarian cultures driven by fanaticism.[40] By the 19th century, with the dawning of Romanticism, this harsh view of the crusades and its time period was mitigated somewhat,[41] with later 19th-century crusade scholarship focusing on increasing specialization of study and more detailed works on subjects.[42]

Enlightenment scholars in the 18th century and modern historians in the West have expressed moral outrage at the conduct of the crusaders. In the 1950s, Sir Steven Runciman wrote that "High ideals were besmirched by cruelty and greed ... the Holy War was nothing more than a long act of intolerance in the name of God".[43]

In the 20th century, three important works covering the entire history of the crusades have been published, those of Rene Grousset, Steven Runciman, and the multi-author work edited by K. M. Stetton.[44] A pluralist view of the crusades has developed in the 20th century inclusive of all papal-led efforts, whether in the Middle East or in Europe.[16] Historian Thomas Madden has made the contrary argument that "[t]he crusade, first and foremost, was a war against Muslims for the defense of the Christian faith.... They began as a result of a Muslim conquest of Christian territories." Madden says the goal of Pope Urban was that "[t]he Christians of the East must be free from the brutal and humiliating conditions of Muslim rule."[17]

After 636, when Muslim forces defeated the Eastern Roman/Byzantines at the Battle of Yarmouk, the control of Palestine passed through the Umayyad Dynasty,[45] the Abbasid Dynasty,[46] and the Fatimids.[47] Toleration, trade, and political relationships between the Arabs and the Christian states of Europe ebbed and flowed until 1072 when the Fatimids lost control of Palestine to the rapidly expanding Great Seljuk Empire.[48] For example, the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, only to have his successor allow the Byzantine Empire to rebuild it.[49] The Muslim rulers allowed pilgrimages by Christians to the holy sites. Resident Christians were considered people of the book and so were tolerated as Dhimmi, and inter-marriage was not uncommon.[50] Cultures and creeds coexisted as much as competed, but the frontier conditions were not conducive to Latin Christian pilgrims and merchants.[51] The disruption of pilgrimages by conquering Seljuk Turks prompted support for the Crusades in Western Europe.[52]

The Byzantine Empire was resurgent from the end of the 10th century, with Basil II spending most of his 50-year reign on campaign, conquering a great amount of territory. He left a growing treasury, at the expense of neglecting domestic affairs and also ignoring the cost of incorporating his conquests into the Byzantine Ecumene. None of Basil’s successors had any particular military or political talent, and governing the Empire increasingly fell into the hands of the civil service. Their efforts to spend the Byzantine economy back into prosperity only resulted in burgeoning inflation. To balance the increasingly unstable budget, Basil’s large standing army was dismissed as unnecessary, and native thematic troops were cashiered and replaced by foreign mercenaries. Following the defeat of the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Seljuk Turks had taken over almost all of Anatolia, and the Empire descended into frequent civil wars.[53]

The Roman Catholic Church

In the West an aggressive and reformist Papacy came into conflict with both the Eastern Empire and Western secular monarchs, leading to the East-West Schism in 1054[54] and the Investiture Controversy, which had started around 1075 and was still on-going during the First Crusade. The papacy began to assert its independence from secular rulers, marshaling arguments for the proper use of armed force by Christians. The result was intense Christian piety, interest in religious affairs, and religious propaganda advocating "Just War" in order to retake Palestine from the Muslims. The majority view was that non-Christians could not be forced to accept Christian baptism or should be physically assaulted for having a different faith as opposed to a less common opinion that vengeance was a response to injuries such as the denial of Christian faith, government or the opportunity for justified forcible conversion.[55] Taking part in such a war was seen as a form of penance, which could remit sins.[56] Meanwhile in Europe, the Germans were expanding at the expense of the Slavs,[57] while Sicily was conquered by the Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard in 1072.[58]

Council of Clermont

In 1074 the Byzantine Emperor Michael VII sent a request for military aid to Pope Gregory VII, but although Gregory appears to have considered leading an expedition to aid Michael, nothing reached the planning stage.[59] The Eastern Empire faced difficulties in the Danube river area, as the Pechenegs had allied with the Seljuq Turks and threatened the Empire until 1091, when they were defeated by EmperorAlexios I Komnenos.

In 1095 Alexios sent envoys to the West requesting military assistance against the Seljuqs. Alexios needed to reinforce his tagmata, so the embassy probably sought to recruit mercenaries and may have exaggerated the dangers facing the Eastern Empire in order to secure the needed troops.[60] The message was received by Pope Urban II at the Council of Piacenza. In November Urban called the Council of Clermont to discuss the matter, further urging the bishops and abbots whom he addressed directly to bring with them the prominent lords in their provinces. The Council lasted from 19 to 28 November, attended by nearly 300 clerics from throughout France. Urban discussed the Cluniac reforms of the Church and extended the excommunication of Philip I of France. Urban spoke for the first time about the problems in the Εast on 27 November, promoting the struggle of western Christians against the Muslims who had occupied the Holy Land and were attacking the Eastern Roman Empire. There are six main sources of information on the Council: the anonymous Gesta Francorum ("The Deeds of the Franks" dated c. 1100/1101),[61] which influenced all versions of the speech, except that by Fulcher of Chartres who was present at the council; Robert the Monk, who may have been present; as well as Baldric, archbishop of Dol, and Guibert de Nogent, who were not present at the council. All the accounts were written much later following different literary traditions and differ greatly.[62]

Robert the Monk, in Historia Iherosolimitana, written in 1106/7, reports that Urban called for orthodoxy, reform, and submission to the Church. Robert records that the pope asked western Christians, poor and rich, to come to the aid of the Byzantine Empire because "Deus vult," ("God wills it"). Robert records that Urban promised remission of sins for those who went to the east, although the 'Liber Lamberti', a source based on the notes of Bishop Lambert of Arras, who attended the Council, indicates that Urban offered the remission of all penance due from sins, later called an indulgence.[63] Robert's account has Urban delivering a classical battle speech: he emphasizes reconquering the Holy Land more than aiding the Greeks; the intervening decades and the events of the First Crusade had certainly shifted the emphasis. According to Robert, Urban listed various gruesome offenses of the Muslims,[64] and more alleged atrocities were expressed in inflammatory images derived from hagiography. Perhaps with the wisdom of hindsight, Robert has Urban advise that none but knights should go, not the old and feeble, nor priests without the permission of their bishops, "for such are more of a hindrance than aid, more of a burden than advantage ... nor ought women to set out at all, without their husbands or brothers or legal guardians". A later version by Baldric, archbishop of Dol, reported the sermon as focusing on the offenses of the Muslims and the reconquest of the Holy Land, and that Urban deplored the violence of the Christian knights of Gaul. He wanted the violence of knights to be ennobled in the service of Christ, defending the churches of the East as if defending a mother. Guibert, abbot of Nogent, also has Urban emphasize the reconquest of the Holy Land more than providing aid to the Greeks or other Christians there. This may, as in the case of Robert and Baldric, be due to the influence of the Gesta Francorum's account of the reconquest of Jerusalem.

A general call was sent out to the knights and nobles of France. Urban apparently knew in advance of the day that Raymond IV of Toulouse was prepared to take up arms. Urban himself spent a few months preaching the Crusade in France, while papal legates spread the word in the south of Italy, during which time the focus presumably turned from helping Alexios to taking Jerusalem. Urban's letter to the faithful "waiting in Flanders" laments that Turks, in addition to ravaging the "churches of God in the eastern regions," have seized "the Holy City of Christ, embellished by his passion and resurrection—and blasphemy to say it—have sold her and her churches into abominable slavery." Yet he does not explicitly call for the reconquest of Jerusalem. Rather he explicitly calls for the military "liberation" of the Eastern Churches and appoints Adhemar of Le Puy to lead the Crusade, to set out on the day of the Assumption of Mary, 15 August.[65] Pope Urban's speech ranks as one of the most influential speeches ever, launching holy wars that occupied the minds and forces of western Europe for 200 years before their ultimate failure.[66]

Role of women, children, and class

Women were intricately connected with the Crusades, aiding the recruitment of crusading men, taking on responsibility in their absence, and providing financial and moral support.[67][68] Historians argue that the most significant role played by women in the West was maintaining the status quo.[69] Landholders left for the Holy Land, leaving control of their estates with regents, often wives or mothers.[70] The Church recognized that risk to families and estates might discourage crusaders, so special papal protection formed part of the crusading privilege.[71] A few women took up the cross themselves to go on the crusade.[72] For example, Eleanor of Aquitaine joined her husband, Louis VII,[72] and some non-aristocratic women were involved in tasks considered feminine like washerwoman.[73] More controversial was women taking an active part, which threatened their femininity, with accounts of women fighting coming mostly from Muslim historians with the aim of portraying Christian women as barbaric and ungodly due to their acts of killing.[74] Christian accounts portray women fighting only in rare situations for the preservation of their camps and lives.[74]

Less historically certain was a Children's Crusade movement in France and Germany in 1212 that attracted large numbers of peasant teenagers and young people, with some under the age of 15. They were convinced that they could succeed where older and more sinful crusaders had failed: the miraculous power of their faith would triumph where the force of arms had not. Many parish priests and parents encouraged such religious fervor and urged them on. The pope and bishops opposed the attempt but failed to stop it entirely. A band of several thousand youth and young men, led by a German named Nicholas, set out for Italy. About a third survived the march over the Alps and got as far as Genoa; another group went to Marseilles. The luckier ones eventually managed to return home, but many others were sold as lifetime slaves on the auction blocks of Marseilles slave dealers.[75]

Three crusading efforts among the peasants occurred in the middle 1250s and again in the early 1300s. The first, the [22] The second, in 1309, occurred in England, northeastern France, and Germany, and had as many as 30,000 peasants arriving at Avignon before being disbanded.[76] The last one, in 1320, had similar origins as the first shepherds' crusade but quickly turned into a series of attacks on clergy and Jews, and was forcibly dispersed.[77]

Richard I of England conquered Cyprus during the Third Crusade; he eventually sold it to the displaced King of Jerusalem Guy of Lusignan in 1192. Guy went on to found a dynasty that lasted until 1489 when control passed to the Republic of Venice.[78] Cyprus became a prosperous medieval kingdom, a commercial and trading hub of Western Christendom in the Middle East.[78]

The Latin Empire and the Partition of the Byzantine Empire after the Fourth Crusade. (c. 1204)

After the fourth crusade the treaty called Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae for "partition of the lands of the empire of Romània[79] established the Latin Empire and arranged the partition of the Byzantine territory among the participants of the Crusade, with the Republic of Venice being the greatest beneficiary. In October 1204 a 24-man committee consisting of 12 Venetians and 12 representatives of the other crusader leaders agreed to give the Latin Emperor direct control of one fourth of the Byzantine territory, Venice three eighths , including three eighths of the city of Constantinople, and divide the remaining three eighths among the other crusader leaders. Thus began the period of the history of Greece known as Frankokratia or Latinokratia ("Frankish/Latin rule"), where Catholic West European nobles, mostly from France and Italy, established states on former Byzantine territory and ruled over the mostly Orthodox native Byzantine Greeks. The Partitio Romànie is a valuable document for the administrative divisions (episkepseis) and estates of the various Byzantine magnate families ca. 1203, as well as the areas still controlled by the Byzantine central government at the time.

Finance

Crusades were expensive and as the wars increased, the costs also escalated. Pope Urban II called upon the rich to help those who were "less well-off" and lords on the First Crusade such as Duke Robert of Normandy and Count Raymond of St. Gilles, who had subsidized knights in their own contingents. The total cost of the crusades of 1284-1285 to King Louis IX of France was at about 1,537,570 livres, which was six times his annual income. This may be an underestimation because there are records that show he spent 1,000,000 livres in Palestine after his campaign in Egypt was over. Furthermore, rulers had demanded subsidies from their subjects.[80] Eventually, alms and legacies from the outburst of enthusiasm in the conquest of Palestine were another source of finance. The popes had ordered chests to be placed in churches for their collection and from the middle of the twelfth century, they granted indulgences, to those who contributed to the movement this way, while also encouraging the faithful to make bequests to the Holy Land in their own wills.[81]

Crusading decline

One factor in the eventual decline and fall was the disunity and conflict that were endemic between the various Latin Christian interests of the Eastern Mediterranean. Pope Martin IV hopelessly compromised the Papacy supporting Charles of Anjou; and the botched secular "crusades" against Sicily and Aragon greatly tarnished its spiritual power. The collapse of its moral authority and the rise of nationalism rang the death knell for crusading, and would ultimately lead to the Avignon Papacy and the Western Schism.

In 1256 the Venetians were evicted from Tyre, prompting the War of Saint Sabas over territory in Acre claimed by both Genoa and Venice.[82] Venice conquered the disputed property, destroying Saint Sabas' fortifications, but was unable to expel the Genoese. During a blockade of 14 months Genoa allied with [84] The conflict resumed in 1264 when the Genoese received aid from Michael VIII Palaiologos, Emperor of Nicaea and Venice failed in an attempt to conquer Tyre. Both sides employed Muslim soldiers, mostly Turcopoles, against their Christian foes and the Genoese had made an alliance with Baybars.[85] The warfare between Genoa and Venice had a significant negative impact on the Kingdom's ability to withstand external threats to its existence. Except for the religious buildings, most of the fortified buildings in Acre had been destroyed at one point and it looked like it had been ravaged by a Muslim army. According to Rothelin, the continuator of William of Tyre'sHistory, 20,000 men had lost their lives in the conflict at a time when the crusader states were chronically short on soldiery. The war ended in 1270 and in 1288 Genoa finally received its quarter in Acre back.[86]

In 1268 Saint Louis’ brother Charles executed Conradin — a great-grandson of Isabella I of Jerusalem, principal pretender to the throne of Jerusalem — when seizing Sicily from the Holy Roman Empire. Charles went on to purchase the rights to Jerusalem from Maria of Antioch — the only remaining grandchild of Queen Isabella— creating a rival claim to that of Hugh III of Cyprus, who was a great grandson of Queen Isabella.[87] Charles spent his life striving to assemble a Mediterranean empire. He and Louis regarded themselves as God's instruments to uphold the Papacy.

Statue of Charles I d'Anjou comte de Provence, in Hyeres

In 1266 Charles had seized, with Sicily, parts of the eastern Adriatic it had previously controlled as well as Corfu, Butrinto, Avlona and Suboto. The Treaty of Viterbo was agreed with the exiled Baldwin II of Constantinople and William II Villehardouin that the heirs of both Latin princes were to marry children of Charles, and Charles was to have the reversion of the Empire and principality should the couples have no heirs. He also turned his brother's crusade to his own advantage, persuading Louis to direct the Eighth Crusade against his rebel vassals in Tunis. Louis’s death, illness among the crusaders and a storm that devastated his fleet forced Charles to postpone his designs against Constantinople. Michael VIII Palaeologus was alarmed by Charles’s planned crusade to restore the Latin Empire that had fallen in 1261 and Charles' expansion in the Mediterranean. Palaeologus delayed Charles by beginning negotiations with Pope Gregory X for a union between the Greek and the Latin churches. At the Council of Lyon, a Union of Churches was declared; Charles and Philip of Courtenay were compelled to extend a truce with Byzantium. The union would later prove to be unacceptable to the Greeks. Palaeologus also provided Genoa with funds to encourage the revolts in Charles’s northern Italian territories.

The accession of a French pope, Martin IV, in 1281 brought the full power of the Papacy into line behind Charles' plans. He campaigned unsuccessfully in Albania and Achaea before preparing to launch the body of his Crusade (400 ships carrying 27,000 mounted knights) against Constantinople. However, Palaeologus allied with Peter III of Aragon to encourage an uprising known as the Sicilian Vespers in which the crusader fleet was abandoned and burnt. The Sicilians appealed to King Peter, who was proclaimed king with the Angevin house exiled forever from Sicily. Pope Martin excommunicated Peter and called a crusade against Aragon before, in 1287, Charles died, allowing Henry II of Cyprus to reclaim the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The mainland Crusading states of the middle eastern Outremer were extinguished with the fall of Tripoli in 1289,[88] and Acre in 1291. The remaining Latin Christians largely left for various destinations in the Frankokratia, were killed or enslaved.[89] Minor crusading efforts lingered into the 14th century. Peter I of Cyprus captured and sacked Alexandria in 1365 in what became known as the Alexandrian Crusade though his motivation was as much commercial as it was religious.[90]Louis II, Duke of Bourbon led a French-Genoese campaign in 1390 against Muslim pirates in North Africa and based in Mahdia called the Mahdian Crusade. After a ten week siege, the crusaders lifted their siege with the signing of a ten-year truce.[91]

Military Orders

Central to the debate on crusading ethics are the military orders, particularly the Hospitallers and the Templars. To a modern sensibility it is strange that the church could reconcile monasticism with soldiering. Both the Hospitallers and the Templars became international organisations with depots located across the countries of Western Europe as well as in the East. In contrast the Teutonic knights successfully moved their attentions to the Baltic and the Spanish military orders of Santiago, Calatrava and Alcantara concentrated on the Iberian Peninsula. The Knights of the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem were founded in 1099 in the aftermath of the first crusade. The order included military, medical and pastoral brothers. Following the fall of Acre they escaped to Cyprus and successively conquered and ruled both Rhodes (1309-1522) and Malta (1530-1801). The Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon were founded in 1118 to protect pilgrims en route to Jerusalem. However, they quickly became immensely rich and powerful through banking and real estate with property throughout Christendom. In 1322 the King of France suppressed the order on spurious charges of sodomy, magic and heresy but more probably for financial and political reasons.[92]

Legacy

Ethnic

He who was a Roman or Frank has in this land been made into a Galilean or a Palestinian. He who was of Rheims or Chartres has now become a citizen of Tyre or Antioch. ... Some have taken wives not merely of their own people, but Syrians, or Armenians, or even Saracens who have received the grace of baptism.

Politics and culture

The crusades influenced the attitude of the western Church and people towards warfare. The frequent calling of crusades habituated the clergy to the use of violence. The crusades also sparked debate about the legitimacy of taking lands and possessions from pagans on purely religious grounds that would arise again in the 15th and 16th centuries with the Age of Discovery.[95] The needs of crusading warfare also stimulated secular governmental developments, although these were not necessarily positive. The resources collected for crusading could have been used by the developing states for local and regional needs instead of in far away lands.[96]

With its power and prestige raised by the crusades, the papal curia had greater control over the entire western Church and extended the system of papal taxation throughout the whole ecclesiastical structure of the West. The indulgence system grew significantly in late medieval Europe, later to spark the Protestant Reformation in the early 1500s.[97]

Military experience influenced European castle design — Caernarfon Castle directly reflects the style of fortresses Edward I had observed while fighting in the Crusades.[98]

The Albigensian Crusade was designed to eliminate the Cathar heresy in Languedoc. One result was France's acquisition of lands with closer cultural and linguistic ties to Catalonia. The Albigensian Crusade also had a role in the creation and institutionalization of both the Dominican Order and the Medieval Inquisition.[99]

Criticism

After the fall of Acre in 1291, European support for the Crusades remained despite criticism by contemporaries such as Roger Bacon who felt the Crusades were ineffective since "those who survive, together with their children, are more and more embittered against the Christian faith."[101][102] The historian Norman Davies summarised the case against the crusades as running counter to the Peace and Truce of God that Urban had promoted; instead they reinforced the connection between Western Christendom, feudalism, and militarism. The formation of military religious orders scandalised the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Greeks. Crusaders pillaged the countries they transited on their journey east. Rather than keeping their oath to restore lands to the Byzantines, they often kept the land for themselves.[9][103][104] The Peoples' Crusade instigated the Rhineland massacres and the massacre of thousands of Jews. In the late 19th century this episode was used by Jewish historians to support Zionism.[11] The Fourth Crusade resulted in the sacking of Constantinople, effectively ending the chance of reuniting the Christian church by reconciling the East–West Schism and leading to the weakening and eventual fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans.

Historians of the Enlightenment criticized the misdirection of the crusades. In particular they pointed to the Fourth Crusade which instead of attacking Islam attacked another Christian power—the (Eastern) Roman Empire. David Nicolle says the Fourth Crusade has always been controversial in terms of the "betrayal" of Byzantium.[105]

Eight hundred years after the Fourth Crusade, Pope John Paul II twice expressed sorrow for the events surrounding it. In 2001, he wrote to Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens, saying, "It is tragic that the assailants, who set out to secure free access for Christians to the Holy Land, turned against their brothers in the faith. The fact that they were Latin Christians fills Catholics with deep regret."[106] In 2004, while Bartholomew I, Patriarch of Constantinople, was visiting the Vatican, John Paul II asked, "How can we not share, at a distance of eight centuries, the pain and disgust."[107] This has been regarded as an apology to the Greek Orthodox Church for the terrible slaughter perpetrated by the warriors of the Fourth Crusade.[108]

In April 2004, in a speech on the 800th anniversary of the city's capture, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I formally accepted the apology. "The spirit of reconciliation is stronger than hatred," he said during a liturgy attended by Roman Catholic Archbishop Philippe Barbarin of Lyon, France. "We receive with gratitude and respect your cordial gesture for the tragic events of the Fourth Crusade. It is a fact that a crime was committed here in the city 800 years ago." Bartholomew said his acceptance came in the spirit of Pascha. "The spirit of reconciliation of the resurrection... incites us toward reconciliation of our churches."[109]

Trade

The need to raise, transport and supply large armies led to a flourishing of trade throughout Europe between Europe and the Outremer. Genoa and Venice flourished through profitable trading colonies in the crusader states, both in the Holy Land and later in captured Byzantine territory.[110]

Age of Crusade

Reconquista (718–1492)

Although the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from Muslims began in the 8th century and reached its turning point with the recapture of Toledo in 1085[111] and the subsequent Council of Clermont in 1095[112] when Urban II tied the ongoing wars in Iberia to his preaching of the First Crusade and the crusading effort, it wasn't until the papal encyclical in 1123 by Pope Calixtus II that these wars attained the status of crusades.[113] After this, the papacy declared Iberian crusades in 1147, 1193, 1197, 1210, 1212, 1221 and 1229. Crusading privileges were also given to those people who were helping the military orders – both the traditional Templars and Hospitallers as well as the specifically Iberian orders that were founded and eventually merged into two main orders – that of the Order of Calatrava and the Order of Santiago. From 1212 to 1265, the Christian kingdoms of Iberia drove Muslim rule into the far south of the Iberian Peninsula, confined to the small Emirate of Granada. In 1492, this remnant was conquered and Muslims and Jews were expelled from the peninsula.[114]

People's Crusade (1096)

Urban inspired the preaching of Peter the Hermit who eventually led perhaps as many as 20,000 people, mostly peasants, towards the Holy Land just after Easter 1096.[115] When they reached the Byzantine Empire, Alexios urged them to wait for the western nobles, but the "army" insisted on proceeding and was ambushed outside Nicaea by the Turks, with only about 3,000 people escaping the ambush.[116] This crusade is considered a part of the First Crusade.

First Crusade (1095–1099) and immediate aftermath

Route of the First Crusade through Asia

The official crusader armies set off from France and Italy at different times in August and September 1096, with Hugh of Vermandois departing first, and the bulk of the army dividing into four parts travelling separately to Constantinople.[117][118] In all, the western forces may have totaled as many as 100,000 persons, counting both combatants and non-combatants.[119] The armies journeyed eastward by land toward Constantinople, where they received a wary welcome from the Byzantine Emperor.[120] Pledging to restore lost territories to the empire,[121] the main army, mostly French and Norman knights under baronial leadership, marched south through Anatolia.[122][123] The leaders of the First Crusade included Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert Curthose, Hugh of Vermandois, Baldwin of Bouillon, Tancred de Hauteville, Raymond of Toulouse, Bohemond of Taranto, Robert II, Count of Flanders, and Stephen, Count of Blois. The King of France and Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, were both in conflict with the Papacy and did not take part.[124] When the French crusaders crossed into Germany in spring 1096, units of crusaders massacred hundreds or thousands of Jews in the cities of Speyer, Worms, Mainz and Cologne, despite the efforts by Catholic bishops to protect the Jews. Major leaders included Emicho and Peter the Hermit.[125] Chazan says "the range of anti-Jewish activity was broad, extending from limited, spontaneous violence to full-scale military attacks on the Jewish communities of Mainz and Cologne."[126] This was the first major outbreak of anti-Jewish violence in Christian Europe and was cited by Zionists in the 19th century as indicating the need for a state of Israel.[127]

The crusader armies initially fought the Turks at the lengthy Siege of Antioch that began in October 1097 and lasted until June 1098. Once inside the city the crusaders massacred the Muslim inhabitants and pillaged the city.[128] However, a large Muslim relief army under Kerbogha immediately besieged the victorious crusaders within Antioch. Bohemond of Taranto led a successful rally of the crusader army and defeated Kerbogha's army on 28 June.[129] Bohemond and his men retained control of Antioch,[130] in spite of his pledge to the Byzantine emperor.[131] Most of the surviving crusader army marched south, moving from town to town along the coast, finally reaching the walls of Jerusalem on 7 June 1099 with only a fraction of their original forces.[130]

... Wonderful sights were to be seen. Some of our men (and this was more merciful) cut off the heads of their enemies; others shot them with arrows, so that they fell from the towers; others tortured them longer by casting them into the flames. Piles of heads, hands and feet were to be seen in the streets of the city. It was necessary to pick one's way over the bodies of men and horses. But these were small matters compared to what happened at the Temple of Solomon, a place where religious services are normally chanted ... in the temple and the porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins. Indeed it was a just and splendid judgement of God that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers since it had suffered so long from their blasphemies

On a popular level, the preaching of the First Crusade unleashed a wave of impassioned, personally felt pious Christian fury that was expressed in the massacres of Jews that accompanied and preceded the movement of the crusaders through Europe,[135] as well as the violent treatment of the "schismatic" Orthodox Christians of the east.[136]

Following this crusade was a second, less successful wave of crusaders, known as the Crusade of 1101, in which Turks led by Kilij Arslan defeated the crusaders in three separate battles in a response to the First Crusade.[137]Sigurd I of Norway was the first European king to visit the crusading states, as well as the first European king to take part in a crusading campaign, although his expedition was as much pilgrimage as crusade. His fleet helped at the Siege of Sidon. Also in 1107, Bohemond I of Antioch attacked the Byzantines at Avlona and Dyrrachium, in what is occasionally called Bohemond's Crusade, which ended in September 1108 with a defeat for Bohemond and his retiring to Italy.

The crusader states were initially secure, but Imad ad-Din Zengi, who was appointed governor of Mosul in 1127, captured Aleppo in 1128 and Edessa in 1144.[140] These defeats led Pope Eugenius III to call for another crusade on 1 March 1145.[138]

Second Crusade (1147–1149)

The new crusade was called for by various preachers, most notably by Bernard of Clairvaux.[141] French and South German armies, under the Kings Louis VII and Conrad III respectively, marched to Jerusalem in 1147 but failed to win any major victories, launching a failed pre-emptive siege of Damascus.[142] On the other side of the Mediterranean, however, the Second Crusade met with great success as a group of Northern European crusaders stopped in Portugal, allied with the Portuguese King, Afonso I of Portugal, and retook Lisbon from the Muslims in 1147.[143] A detachment from this group of crusaders helped Count Raymond Berenguer IV of Barcelona conquer the city of Tortosa the following year.[144] In the Holy Land by 1150, both the kings of France and Germany had returned to their countries without any result. Bernard of Clairvaux, who in his preachings had encouraged the Second Crusade, was upset with the amount of misdirected violence and slaughter of the Jewish population of the Rhineland.[142] A followup to this crusade was the pilgrimage of Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, in 1172 that is sometimes labeled a crusade.[145]

Wendish (1147–1162)

Contemporaneous with the Second Crusade, Saxons and Danes fought against Polabian Slavs in the Wendish Crusade or First Northern Crusade. The Wends defeated the Danes and the Saxons did not contribute much to the crusade.[146] The Wends did acknowledge the overlordship of the Saxon ruler, Henry the Lion. Further crusading actions continued although no papal bulls were issued calling new crusades.[147] Efforts to conquer the Wends began again in 1160 under Henry the Lion,[148] continuing until 1162, when the Wends were defeated at the Battle of Demmin.[149]

Third Crusade (1187–1192)

The Muslims had long fought among themselves, but they were finally united by Saladin, who created a single powerful state.[150] Following his victory at the Battle of Hattin he easily overwhelmed the disunited crusaders in 1187 and retook Jerusalem on 29 September 1187. Terms were arranged and the city surrendered, with Saladin entering the city on 2 October 1187.[151]

Saladin's victories shocked Europe. On hearing news of the Acre after a long siege. The crusader army headed south along the Mediterranean coast, defeated the Muslims near Arsuf, recaptured the port city of Jaffa, and was in sight of Jerusalem, but supply problems forced them to end the crusade without taking Jerusalem.[145] Richard left the following year after negotiating a treaty with Saladin. The terms allowed trade for merchants and unarmed Christian pilgrims to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem, while it remained under Muslim control.[153]

Pope Honorius III called a crusade against the Prussians in 1217.[156]Konrad of Masovia gave Chelmno to the Teutonic Knights in 1226 to serve as a base for the Prussian crusade.[157] In 1236 the Livonian Sword Brothers were defeated by the Lithuanians at Saule, and in 1237 Pope Gregory IX merged the remaining Sword Brothers into the Teutonic Knights.[158] By 1249, the Teutonic Knights had completed their conquest of the Prussians, which they ruled as a fief of the German emperor. The Knights then moved on to conquer and convert the pagan Lithuanians, a process that lasted into the 1380s.[159]

The Teutonic Order attempted but failed to conquer Orthodox Russia (particularly the Republics of Pskov and Novgorod), an enterprise endorsed by Pope Gregory IX, as part of the Northern Crusades. In 1240 the Novgorod army defeated the Swedes in the Battle of the Neva,[160] and in 1242 they defeated the Livonian knights in the Battle of the Ice.[159]

Fourth Crusade (1202–1204)

The Fourth Crusade never reached the Holy Land. Instead, it became a vehicle for the political ambitions of Doge Enrico Dandolo and the German King Philip of Swabia who was married to Irene of Byzantium. Dandolo saw an opportunity to expand Venice's possessions in the near east, while Philip saw the crusade as a chance to restore his exiled nephew, Alexios IV Angelos, to the throne of Byzantium.[161]Pope Innocent III initiated recruitment for the crusade in 1200 with preaching taking place in France, England, and Germany, although the bulk of the efforts were in France.[162]

The crusaders contracted with the Venetians for a fleet and provisions to transport them to the Holy Land, but they lacked the funds to pay when too few knights arrived in Venice. They agreed to divert the crusade to Constantinople and share what could be looted as payment. As collateral the crusaders seized the Christian city of Zara on 24 November 1202. Innocent was appalled and excommunicated the crusaders.[163] The crusaders met with limited resistance in their initial siege of Constantinople, sailing down the Dardanelles and breaching the sea walls. However, Alexios was strangled after a palace coup, robbing them of their success, and they had to repeat the siege in April 1204. This time the city was sacked, churches pillaged, and large numbers of the citizens butchered. The crusaders took their rewards, dividing the Empire into Latin fiefs and Venetian colonies. In the Venetian period, there was particular attention to improving defences of La Cava and Nicosia.[164]

In April 1205, the crusaders were largely annihilated by Bulgars and remaining Greeks at Adrianople, where Kaloyan of Bulgaria captured and imprisoned the new Latin emperor Baldwin of Flanders.[165][166][167] While deploring the means, the papacy initially supported this apparent forced reunion between the Eastern and Western churches.[168] The Fourth Crusade effectively left two Roman Empires in the East: a Latin "Empire of the Straits", existing until 1261, and a Byzantine enclave ruled from Nicea, which later regained control in the absence of the Venetian fleet. Venice was the sole beneficiary in the long run.[169]

Albigensian Crusade (1208–1241)

Pope Innocent III excommunicating the Albigensians (left), Massacre against the Albigensians by the crusaders (right)

The Albigensian Crusade was launched in 1208 to eliminate the hereticalCathars of Occitania (modern-day southern France). It was a decades-long struggle that had as much to do with the desire of northern France to extend its control southwards as it did with battling heresy. In the end, the Cathars were driven underground, and the independence of southern France was eliminated.[170]

Pope Honorius III called a crusade against supposed Cathar heretics in Bosnia. There were rumors that there was an anti-pope of the Cathars named Nicetas, although whether such a figure ever existed is unclear. Hungarian forces responded to the papal calls in two efforts in 1234 and 1241, with the second one ending because of the Mongol invasion of Hungary in 1241. The Bosnian church was Catholic in theology, but continued to be in schism with the Roman Catholic Church well past the end of the Middle Ages.[171]

Fifth Crusade (1217–1221)

Dirham struck by Christians between 1216 and 1241 with Arabic inscriptions.

Pope Innocent III declared a new crusade to commence in 1217, along with his summoning of the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215. The majority of the crusaders came from Germany, Flanders, and Frisia, along with a large army from Hungary led by King Andrew II and other forces led by Duke Leopold VI. The forces of Andrew and Leopold arrived in Acre in October 1217 but little was accomplished and Andrew returned to Hungary in January 1218. After the arrival of more crusaders, Leopold and the king of Jerusalem, John of Brienne, laid siege to Damietta, Egypt,[172] which they captured finally in November 1219. Further efforts by the papal legate, Pelagius, to invade further into Egypt led to no gains.[173] Blocked by forces of the AyyubidSultanAl-Kamil, the crusaders were forced to surrender. Al-Kamil forced the return of Damietta and agreed to an eight-year truce and the crusaders left Egypt.[174]

Sixth Crusade (1228–1229)

Emperor Frederick II had repeatedly vowed a crusade but failed to live up to his words,[175] for which he was excommunicated by Gregory IX in 1228. He nonetheless set sail from Brindisi in June 1228 and landed at Saint-Jean d'Acre in September 1228, after a stopover in Cyprus.[176] There were no battles as Frederick made a peace treaty with Al-Kamil, the ruler of Egypt. This treaty allowed Christians to rule over most of Jerusalem and a strip of territory from Acre to Jerusalem, while the Muslims were given control of their sacred areas in Jerusalem. In return, Frederick pledged to protect Al-Kamil against all his enemies, even if they were Christian.[177]

A followup to this crusade was the effort by King Theobald I of Navarre in 1239 and 1240 that had originally been called in 1234 by Pope Gregory IX to assemble in July 1239 at the end of a truce. Besides Theobald, Peter of Dreux and Hugh, Duke of Burgundy and other French nobles took part. They arrived in Acre in September 1239 and after a defeat in November, Theobald arranged a treaty with the Muslims that returned territory to the crusading states, but caused much disaffection within the crusaders. Theobald returned to Europe in September 1240. Also in 1240, Richard of Cornwall, younger brother of King Henry III of England, took the cross and arrived in Acre in October. He then secured the ratification of Theobald's treaty and left the Holy Land in May 1241 for Europe.[20]

Seventh Crusade (1248–1254)

In the summer of 1244 a Khwarezmian force summoned by the son of al-Kamil, al-Salih Ayyub, stormed and took Jerusalem. The Franks allied with Ayyub's uncle Ismail and the emir of Homs and their combined forces were drawn into battle at La Forbie in Gaza. The crusader army and its allies were completely defeated within forty-eight hours by the Khwarezmian tribesmen.[178] In showing utter agony, a Templar knight lamented :

“

Rage and sorrow are seated in my heart...so firmly that I scarce dare to stay alive. It seems that God wishes to support the Turks to our loss...ah, lord God...alas, the realm of the East has lost so much that it will never be able to rise up again. They will make a Mosque of Holy Mary's convent, and since the theft pleases her Son, who should weep at this, we are forced to comply as well...Anyone who wishes to fight the Turks is mad, for Jesus Christ does not fight them any more. They have conquered, they will conquer. For every day they drive us down, knowing that God, who was awake, sleeps now, and Muhammad waxes powerful.[179]

”

King [180] Louis' forces set sail from France in May 1249 and landed near Damietta in Egypt on 5 June 1249. Waiting until the end of the Nile flood, the army marched into the interior in November and by February were near Mansura. They were defeated near there, however, and King Louis was captured while retreating towards Damietta.[181] Louis was ransomed for 800,000 bezants and a ten-year truce was agreed. Louis then went to Syria, where he remained until 1254 working to solidify the kingdom of Jerusalem and constructing fortifications.[182]

Eighth and Ninth Crusade (1270–1272)

Ignoring his advisers, in 1270 Louis IX again attacked the Arabs in Tunis in North Africa. He picked the hottest season of the year for campaigning and his army was devastated by disease. The king himself died, ending the last major attempt to take the Holy Land.[183] The Mamluks, led by Baibars, eventually drove the Franks from the Holy Land. From 1265 through 1271, Baibars drove the Franks to a few small coastal outposts.[184] His armies slaughtered or enslaved every Christian in the city of Antioch.[185] The future Edward I of England undertook to crusade with Louis IX, but he was delayed and did not arrive in North Africa until November 1270. After the death of Louis, Edward went to Sicily and then on to Acre in May 1271. His forces were too small to make much difference, though, and he was upset at the conclusion of a truce between Baibars and the king of Jerusalem, Hugh. Although Edward learned of his father's death and his succession to the throne in December 1272, he did not return to England until 1274, although he accomplished little in the Holy Land.[186]

Crusades of the 14th and 15th centuries

Execution of Christian prisoners after the Battle of Nicopolis (1396) in retaliation for the Rahovo massacre of Ottoman prisoners.

Various crusades were launched in the 14th and 15th centuries to counter the expanding Ottoman Empire starting in 1396 with Sigismund of Luxemburg, king of Hungary. Many French nobles joined Sigismund's forces, including John the Fearless, son of the Duke of Burgundy, who was appointed military leader of the crusade. Although Sigismund advised the crusaders to adopt a defensive posture once they reached the Danube, the crusaders instead besieged the city of Nicopolis. The Ottomans met the crusaders in the Battle of Nicopolis on 25 September 1396, defeating the Christian forces and capturing 3,000 prisoners.[188]

The battle between the Hussite warriors and the Crusaders, Jena Codex, 15th century

The Hussite Crusade(s), also known as the "Hussite Wars," or the "Bohemian Wars," involved the military actions against the followers of Jan Hus in Bohemia in the period 1420 to around 1431. Crusades were declared five times in that period – in 1420, 1421, 1422, 1427 and in 1431. The net effect of these expeditions was to force the Hussite forces, which disagreed on many doctrinal points, to unite to drive out the invaders. The wars were brought to a conclusion in 1436 with the ratification of the Compactata of Iglau by the Church.[189] In April 1487, Pope Innocent VIII called a crusade against the Waldensian heretics of Savoy, the Piedmont, and the Dauphiné in southern France and northern Italy. The only efforts actually undertaken were against heretics in the Dauphiné, and resulted in little change.[190]

The Polish-Hungarian king, Władysław Warneńczyk invaded the recently conquered Ottoman territory and reached Belgrade in January 1444. Negotiations over a truce eventually led to an agreement, that was repudiated by Sultan Murad II within days of its ratification. Further efforts by the crusaders ended in the Battle of Varna on 10 November 1444 which, which was a decisive Ottoman victory, led to the crusaders withdrawing. This withdrawal led to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, as it was the last Western attempt to help the Byzantine Empire.

^Michaud, The History of the Crusades, Vol. 3, p. 18 ; available in full at Google Books. Note that in a footnote Michaud claims reliance on "the chronicle of Ibn Ferat" (Michaud, Vol.3, p.22) for much of the information he has concerning the Mussulmans.

Riley-Smith, Jonathan.The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading. (1986)

Runciman, Steven. A History of the Crusades: Volume 2, The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East (1952) vol 2 online free; A History of the Crusades: Volume 3, The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades (1954); the classic 20th century history

Setton, Kenneth ed., A History of the Crusades. (1969–1989), the standard scholarly history in six volumes, published by the University of Wisconsin Press

Includes: The first hundred years (2nd ed. 1969); The later Crusades, 1189–1311 (1969); The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (1975); The art and architecture of the crusader states (1977); The impact of the Crusades on the Near East (1985); The impact of the Crusades on Europe (1989)

von Güttner-Sporzyński, Darius. "Recent Issues in Polish Historiography of the Crusades" in Judi Upton-Ward, The Military Orders: Volume 4, On Land and by Sea (2008) available on Researchgate, available on Academia.edu

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